“My Favorite Things”: How John Coltrane Reimagined a Broadway Classic

Key Takeaways

John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” revolutionized jazz by transforming a simple Broadway tune into a profound spiritual experience. He utilized its repetitive structure and emotionally neutral melody to explore complex moods within a meditative framework. This innovative approach, featuring the soprano saxophone, bridged American and global musical elements, marking a significant shift in jazz and establishing a new artistic voice.

• ​Structural Freedom: In “Coltrane My Favorite Things,” the song’s repetitive structure acted like a musical loop, allowing Coltrane to break free from standard jazz forms into a trance-like state.
• ​Emotional Duality: Because the original melody is emotionally “neutral” (neither inherently happy nor sad), Coltrane could paint complex, shifting moods underneath it.
• ​Cultural Fusion: Coltrane blended the American Broadway standard with the droning textures of Indian or African music, proving disparate worlds could coexist in one sound.
• ​The New Voice: This recording made the soprano saxophone—a piercing, higher-pitched instrument largely forgotten since the 1920s—a definitive voice in modern jazz.
• ​Meditative Groove: By staying on one harmonic mood for long stretches, the track anticipated the “Minimalist” movement, focusing on gradual change rather than rapid-fire complexity.

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​From Broadway Sparkle to Jazz Smoke: How Coltrane Reinvented “My Favorite Things”

​Imagine the musical landscape of America in 1959. On the bright, polished stages of Broadway, The Sound of Music had just premiered. It offered a comforting blanket of optimism to a post-war generation, epitomized by Julie Andrews as Maria, singing about crisp apple strudels and warm woollen mittens to soothe frightened children. It was charming, innocent, and impeccably tidy. As Andrews herself noted of her character’s worldview, “When anything bugs me and I’m being unhappy, I just try and think of nice things.” ⁽¹⁾

​Now, imagine a different scene just one year later: a dimly lit, smoky jazz club in Manhattan. The air is thick, the vibe is intense, and on the bandstand, John Coltrane is about to take that same tidy Broadway song and tear it open.

​In 1960, Coltrane released his version of “My Favorite Things.” He stretched Rodgers and Hammerstein’s three-minute ditty into a nearly fourteen-minute, hypnotic whirlwind. It became an unlikely hit, a jazz totem that bridged the gap between pop culture and high art. But how did he transform a tune about “whiskers on kittens” into a spiritual experience?

Listen to: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s My Favorite Things

​Listen to: My Favorite Things – John Coltrane

The Comfort of the Original

​Before Coltrane touched it, “My Favorite Things” was already a cultural phenomenon. Rodgers and Hammerstein were the masters of the “Golden Age” musical, experts at crafting melodies that felt like old friends the first time you heard them.

​In the context of the show, the song is a psychological trick. It uses lists of innocent joys to mask a terrifying reality: the von Trapp family preparing to flee Nazi-occupied Austria. It was a “cheery salve” for scary times. But beneath that simple, candy-coated surface lay a hidden musical architecture—a secret blueprint that only a visionary like Coltrane could see.

​The Jazzman’s Epiphany: A New Way to Fly

​By 1960, John Coltrane was feeling constrained. The dominant jazz style of the era, Bebop, was incredibly complex. It was like running full speed through a dense hedge maze—the chords (the harmonic structure) changed rapidly every few seconds, forcing the musician to constantly bob and weave to keep up.

​Coltrane was looking for stillness. He began moving toward Modal Jazz.

Modal Jazz

​To understand Modal Jazz, imagine standing on a mountain peak staring at a vast horizon. Instead of the scenery changing constantly, you are looking at the same view for a long time, but observing how the light slowly shifts across it. In Modal Jazz, the band stays on one “mood” or scale for long stretches. It creates a meditative, trance-like atmosphere. As composer Steve Reich jokingly described this shift toward musical stasis, it was like playing “F for half-an-hour!” ⁽²⁾

​To match this new spiritual approach, Coltrane needed a new voice. His mentor, Miles Davis, had gifted him a soprano saxophone. Unlike his usual tenor sax, which had a deep, warm growl, the soprano was higher, thinner, and more piercing—distinctly Eastern in its sound. Coltrane realized this instrument, combined with this new modal style, was the key to reinventing the most famous songs of the day. He noted the instrument’s unique capability, saying, “It’s like having another hand.” ⁽³⁾

​Decoding the Hidden Blueprint

​Why pick a Sound of Music track for this radical experiment? Musicologists point to two hidden features in the song’s DNA that made it the perfect vehicle for Coltrane’s vision.

​1. The Hypnotic Loop (The AAAB Structure)

​Think of most pop songs or show tunes you know. They usually follow a structure like a sandwich, known as AABA: Let’s say, “Verse (A), Verse (A), Chorus/Bridge (B), Verse (A).” It’s comfortable and predictable.

​”My Favorite Things” is strangely different. It uses an AAAB structure.

• ​A: It plays the main melody (“Raindrops on roses…”).
• ​A: It repeats that melody immediately (“Cream colored ponies…”).
• ​A: It repeats it again (“Girls in white dresses…”).
• ​B: Only then does it hit the release, the bridge (“When the dog bites!”).

​This triple repetition creates a feeling of spinning. It’s not a sandwich; it’s a spiral staircase. This repetitive nature allowed Coltrane’s band to lock into a groove and loop it endlessly, creating that hypnotic, trance-inducing effect.

Visualizing the Structure:

​2. The “Neutral” Face of the Melody

​In Western music, certain notes act like emotional signposts. The most important are called “thirds.” A “major third” tells your ear the song is happy; a “minor third” tells you it’s sad.

​Incredibly, the main melody of “My Favorite Things” avoids these defining notes almost entirely. It sits in a musical gray area.

​Because the melody itself is emotionally “neutral”—like a face with a blank expression—Coltrane realized he could manipulate the mood underneath it at will. He could play dark, minor harmonies under the melody, then suddenly shift to bright, major harmonies without changing the tune itself. This major-minor duality gives his version its unsettling, shifting quality. As critic Ben Ratliff explains, the track “remains ambivalent… It spins you around; it gives you enough of the pleasant impression, sometimes, that you don’t know where you are or what song you’re in.” ⁽⁴⁾

Visualizing the Melody:

​Inside the Spiral: The Recording

​When Coltrane’s quartet—featuring the thunderous McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis anchoring the bass, and the polyrhythmic wizard Elvin Jones on drums—hit the studio, they didn’t just play the song; they cast a spell.

​They utilized an ancient technique inspired by Indian classical music: The Drone. The bass player didn’t walk up and down scales; he mostly stayed on one low, grounding note. This acted like an anchor, allowing Coltrane’s soprano sax to fly wildly over the top without the song flying apart.

​Furthermore, Coltrane masterfully used tension and release. In the Broadway version, the “bridge” (the exciting “When the dog bites!” part) happens within the first minute. In Coltrane’s 14-minute odyssey, he makes you wait. And wait. He teases the theme, spirals away from it, and dives back in. He waits over twelve minutes to finally play that release section. When it arrives, the emotional payoff for the listener is massive—a moment of ecstatic release after miles of tension.

​Coltrane recognized the unique power of the session, remarking, “My Favorite Things is my favorite piece of everything we’ve recorded… This waltz is fantastic… It’s very interesting to discover a terrain that renews itself according to the impulse that you give it.” ⁽⁵⁾

Visualizing the Atmosphere:

​The Enduring Spell

​Coltrane’s My Favorite Things was a sensation. It became one of the rare instrumental jazz records to be certified “Gold.” He had taken a piece of mainstream pop culture, found the hidden doorway inside it, and walked through it into a new spiritual realm.

​The impact felt by listeners at the time was profound. It wasn’t just music; it was a cultural statement. The poet and critic Amiri Baraka recalled the deep connection his generation felt to the sound: “I sat one afternoon and whistled all the Trane I remembered.” ⁽⁶⁾ For jazz writer Eric Nisenson, listening to the track was a transcendent experience where “time seemed to stop… the feelings it engendered were closer to the awe one felt for a volcano.” ⁽⁷⁾

​It remains the ultimate example of jazz alchemy. A great artist doesn’t just cover a song; they inhabit it, dismantle it, and rebuild it in their own image. As Coltrane scholar Lewis Porter notes, Coltrane practiced with ferocious intensity to achieve these sounds, reaching a point where “he could pretty much take any note on the saxophone… and play two notes at once,” ⁽⁸⁾ effectively doubling the intensity of the experience. He took a song about simple joys and turned it into a prayer.

​Frequently Asked Questions

​Why did John Coltrane choose “My Favorite Things” to cover?

Coltrane was drawn to the song’s unique “AAAB” structure and its emotionally “neutral” melody. Unlike most show tunes that lock a musician into a specific mood, this song allowed him to experiment with Modal Jazz. He found he could paint different emotional colors (major and minor) underneath the melody without breaking the song, turning a simple waltz into a complex spiritual exploration.

​What is the difference between the Broadway and Jazz versions?

The original Broadway version is a short (approx. 3 minutes), cheerful, and structured waltz designed to comfort children. Coltrane’s version is a 14-minute avant-garde masterpiece. It utilizes a droning bass texture, intense improvisation, and significantly delays the song’s “bridge” section for over twelve minutes to create a sense of hypnotic tension and massive emotional release.

​What instrument defines the sound of this track?

John Coltrane played the soprano saxophone on this recording. Unlike the curved, deep-sounding tenor saxophone he was famous for, the soprano is straight and has a higher, more piercing, and slightly nasal tone. This instrument gave the track its distinct “Eastern” or Indian-influenced sound.

​What is “Modal Jazz” in simple terms?

Think of standard jazz (Bebop) like running through a maze where you have to turn left or right every few seconds to keep up with the changing chords. Modal Jazz is like standing on a mountain peak staring at the horizon. The band stays on one “mood” or scale for a long time, allowing the soloist to focus on melody and meditation rather than constantly navigating complex chord changes.

​Footnotes

• ​(1) Jacob Uitti, “Who Wrote the Cheerful Classic, ‘My Favorite Things,’ from ‘The Sound of Music’,” American Songwriter, May 12, 2023.
• ​(2) Steve Reich, “An Interview with Steve Reich,” American Mavericks, Public Radio International.
• ​(3) Ben Ratliff, “John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things Turns 60,” Rhino Media, May 20, 2022.
• ​(4) Ben Ratliff, “John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things Turns 60,” Rhino Media, May 20, 2022.
• ​(5) John Coltrane, Interview with Jazz Hot Magazine, 1962.
• ​(6) Amiri Baraka, “I Love Music (For John Coltrane),” NJArts.net.
• ​(7) Eric Nisenson, “Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest,” Da Capo Press, 1995.
• ​(8) Lewis Porter, “Searching for John Coltrane,” Furious.com Interview.